Ligonier Conference: Entry #10

Friday, March 16
3:35 p.m.

Al Mohler addresses "The Authority of Scripture"

Ok. So now I'm beginning to experience a brain melt-down. The all-night drive from East Tennessee, sleeping in an odorous hotel room (not the best accommodations in Orlando I'm sure...), and drinking from the theological fire hose (and enjoying it...) are beginning to catch up with me.

I was taking pretty good notes on Mohler's message, but I realized toward the end that my hand-writing was beginning to look like scribbles falling off the edge of the page. So-- here is a stream-lined notation.
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Ice-Breaker: Sometimes the media just ask stupid questions. You can dance around some stupid questions and dress up others--but then the quintessentially stupid question is hard to respond to. When, at the age of 33, Mohler became president of Southern Seminary, a reporter asked, "Dr. Mohler, you are 33 years old. What are you going to do about it?" Mohler's only response was "I intend to age."

Text: 2 Timothy 3:14-17

Epistemology is the study of how we know everything. It seeks to explain the process, possibilities, and products of knowledge. And some issues are epistemologically complex. The more important the question, the higher are the epistemological stakes.

The issues of germs, global warming, and God's existence are all epistemological issues.

Every world-view must answer 4 basic questions:

1. When did everything begin?
2. What has gone wrong?
3. Can it be fixed?
4. When will it end (eschatology)

Marxism, humanism, naturalistic scientism, and eastern philosophies address these 4 questions one way or another.

We as Christians are inheritors of a world-view that answers the questions with beauty, symmetry, coherency, and correspondence to reality.

The image of God in us is expressed epistemologically. Animals do not ponder the 4 questions. When we go to the zoo, we read a humanly written guide to the animals--not a guide written by animals about humans!

Romans 1 reveals that the knowledge of God exists in our hearts, but we have corrupted that knowledge. Indeed, mankind has a quest for God, an impulse to worship, but it is corrupted and leads to idolatry. Our idols today are very sophisticated (many of them are digital), but they still have the stench of death around them.

No. As Francis Schaeffer has written, He is There and He is Not Silent. God has not left us alone in our epistemological crisis. And His revelation is not merely found in our intuition, ideas, concepts, or vague awareness. God has revealed Himself in WORDS.

Contrary to postmodernism, the "text" is not dead. We don't live that way in the real world. What is written actually reveals at the same time as it limits.

The God of the Bible is a speaking god. He intervenes and speaks. And, as Carl Henry mentioned, He "forfeited his own personal right to privacy so His creatures might know Him."

God's self-disclosure is a manifestation of God's grace.
God's self-disclosure is the inscripturated word.

The Bible is our access to the revelation of God in Christ. It is even better than the eye-witness testimony the apostles enjoyed themselves! Christianity is the only world-view with a complete account of revelation.

The Bible calls us to a Christological interpretation of the Old Testament. It is also profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training.

(Begin the Blogger's Brain Melt-Down...)

When we discuss the Bible, we mean the 66 books of the canon. And we are positive about this canon and negative about every other claimant to revelation (i.e. Koran or the Book of Mormon).

The 66 books did not come from one man, but many. It came over many centuries--verified by the generation that received it! It is written in differing circumstances, styles, and genres, yet it all coheres and corresponds to reality.

It makes historical claims at the time that the recipients would have known about. Again, it was verifiable by those who received it.

It is preserved by God through successive generations. It is a book of antiquity.

The more textual history is known, the more the Bible is confirmed.

Archaeological discoveries continue to confirm Scripture. Example: While excavating for a new airport, remnants of Molech worship were discovered: remains of human sacrifice of children under the age of two. In the past, skeptics said there never was Molech worhip. Such talk was merely Jewish propaganda against the Canaanites.

Predictive Prophecy also shows the supernatural truthfulness of Scripture.

SO: When Scripture Speaks, God Speaks.

This philosophy/truth is immediately a limiting factor! We must limit ourselves to the Scriptures of God--or we will be "seeking uncertain deities by devious paths (Calvin)."

God's Word reveals and limits at the same time.

Calvin's Proofs of Scripture Are:

1. Content.
2. Antiquity.
3. Miracles.
4. Prophecy Fulfilled.
5. Preservation.
6. Martyrdom: People have given their lives in loyalty to the truthfulness of Scripture and the truth of Scripture.

Other signs of the Bible Authority are consistency, coherence, candor (it shows the heros of the Bible with their flaws...), the Focus on Christ, and the display of Promise and Fulfillment.

Sola Scriptura!
Norma Normons Non Normata!

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The End.
My Brain is Dead.
See You Tomorrow. - JR.